Israelis yesterday marked the first anniversary of the devastating Hamas attack that triggered a war which has sparked protest worldwide and risks igniting a far wider conflict in the Middle East.

Ceremonies and protests in Jerusalem and Israel’s south began around 06:29 am (0329 GMT), the hour when Hamas-led militants launched rockets into Israel at the start of the Oct 7 attack last year.

 Outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem, around 300 people led by families of hostages holding up photos of their loved ones, observed a minute of silence for the dead as a siren sounded.
 “We’re still stuck in October 7th, 2023, in one unending day of terror, of fear, of anger, of despair,” said Yuval Baron, whose father-in-law Keith Siegel is hostage in Gaza.

 “We wanted to start this day together to remind ourselves, our prime minister, the public of Israel that even though it is a day of grief there is still a holy mission to bring back the hostages,” said Baron.
 In Reim, the site of the music festival where more than 360 people were killed and dozens taken hostage, President Isaac Herzog presided over the memorial ceremony which began with the last track that was played at the party a year ago.

 Ceremonies were to take place at kibbutz villages and towns near the border throughout the day.

 The Hamas attacks killed 1,200 people and more than 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli figures.

 They provoked an Israeli offensive in Gaza that has laid waste the densely populated coastal enclave, killed almost 42,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and displaced most of the 2.3 million population.

 In Gaza, 101 hostages remain as Israeli forces press on with their mission to demolish Hamas’ military capabilities.

Israel has bombed more than 40,000 targets in Gaza, found 4,700 tunnel shafts and destroyed 1,000 rocket launcher sites in the past year, the military said on Monday.

 Tallying troops whose names it received permission to publish, Israel’s military said 726 Israeli soldiers had been killed since Oct 7, 2023. Of those, 380 died in the Oct 7 attacks and 346 in Gaza combat starting Oct 27, 2023.

 Injured troops numbered 4,576 since that date. Fifty-six soldiers died as a result of operational accidents, which the military did not define.

 The focus of the war, however, has increasingly shifted north to Lebanon where Israeli forces have been exchanging fire with Hezbollah since the group launched a barrage of missiles in support of Hamas on Oct 8.
 Israel’s attacks, which has killed well over 1,000 people in the past two weeks, has triggered a mass flight from southern Lebanon where more than 1 million people have been displaced.

On Sunday, Israel bombed targets in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Oct 7 attacks. Israeli air strikes battered Beirut’s southern suburbs in the most intense bombardment of the Lebanese capital since Israel sharply escalated its campaign against Hezbollah last month. Large fireballs lit the darkened skyline and booms reverberated across Beirut.

 Hezbollah rockets launched late on Sunday got past Israeli air defense systems and landed in Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, causing damage to buildings, police said. Israeli media reported 10 people wounded in rocket strikes in Haifa and the city of Tiberias.

 Hezbollah said it had targeted a military site south of Haifa with a salvo of “Fadi 1” missiles.

 The Israeli military said its fighter jets struck targets in Beirut belonging to Hezbollah’s Intelligence Headquarters and weapons storage facilities. It said strikes also targeted Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa area.

 On the eve of the anniversary, pro-Palestinian demonstrators protested against Israel around the world from Jakarta to Istanbul and Rabat after rallies in major European capitals, Washington and New York on Saturday. 
 Israel snubbed a US-backed push for a ceasefire in launching ground operations in Lebanon. The US government reacted to Israel’s heavy bombardment there by saying that military pressure can enable diplomacy but can also lead to miscalculations.

 French President Emmanuel Macron said over the weekend that shipments of arms to Israel should be stopped.

 The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for residents of southern Beirut late on Sunday in advance of further strikes.

 On Sunday night, Israel declared three more areas on its northern border as closed military zones in addition to more than five closed last week as military staging areas.

 An Israeli strike on a building in the mountain town of Kayfoun in central Lebanon killed six people and wounded 13, Lebanon’s health ministry said. A strike in the nearby town Qmatiye killed six more, including three children, and wounded 11, it said.

 In the Gaza Strip, at least 26 people were killed and 93 others wounded when Israeli airstrikes hit a mosque and a school sheltering displaced people on Sunday, according to the Hamas-run Gaza government media office. The Israeli military said it had conducted “precise strikes on Hamas terrorists”.
 
 ‘Joint command’ leads  Hezbollah
Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine was targeted by Israeli strikes on southern Beirut last week and his fate remains unclear. He is considered a likely successor to leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli attack last month.

 Senior Hezbollah political official Mahmoud Qmati told Iraqi state television on Sunday that Israeli bombing was obstructing search efforts in an area where Safieddine had reportedly been targeted. He said Hezbollah was being led by a joint command until a leader was designated.

 The conflict in Lebanon, which started a year ago with cross-border strikes by Hezbollah in solidarity with Hamas, has rapidly expanded in the past couple of weeks. 
 More than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in nearly a year of fighting, most in the past two weeks, according to the Lebanese health ministry. The ministry said on Sunday that 25 people were killed on Saturday.

 “Last night was the most violent of all the previous nights,” said Hanan Abdullah, a resident of Beirut’s southern suburbs. “There were dozens of strikes - we couldn’t count them all - and the sounds were deafening.”
  The United Nations’ refugee chief said on Sunday there were “many instances” where Israeli airstrikes had violated international law by hitting civilian infrastructure and killing civilians in Lebanon.

 Israel says it targets military capabilities and takes steps to mitigate the risk of civilian harm, while Lebanese authorities say civilians have been targeted. Israel accuses both Hezbollah and Hamas of hiding among civilians, which they deny.         

Agencies